This ended up being one of those skills I'd end up using daily. After a while, I even found it kind of fun to go off on my farming routes. While I did not start making much if any gold at all. In the end, I found some rather amazing opportunities with shortfalls in the market.

Farming is one of those skills early on and I tried to find a way to at least break even on it. I did not realize at the start the kind of gold-making opportunities that would present themselves after I got some levels. To me, it was just yet another skill I needed to level up for different quests.

Farming is also one of those kinds of things that would be a lot more time-consuming without having Fairytale parts 1 part of 2 done. This also happened to give me quite a nice little boost in experience. While I had done those quests for the fairy ring unlock. They ended up being quite beneficial in helping boost this skill along the way. With several other quests as well.

While I had raked some plant patching in the past. That was more or less just a way to get some rather low experience. It was at least something. With every patch, you always have to clear them out first.

With the weeds you end up removing you then can compost them. This requires you to put enough into a compost bin and wait around for a while. After a couple of attempts at this, I decided it was just better to buy compost from other players. There would be other aspects of this skill where I could save a bit of money by making things myself.

In some of the plots I ended up clearing out I had bought some low and near worthless seeds to try my hand at planting. I would often leave those locations and come back later to find what I had planted was dead.

This rather left me discouraged. As I would not be getting experience from dead plants. This also rather reinforced my desire to either use compost or pay off the local gardener who was watching over the different patches I was trying to farm at.

The gardeners themselves would ask for different kinds of items. For lower-level stuff, at first, it was just compost. The very compost I'd have put on the plants themselves that would have possibly then died. Expect by giving it to the gardener and then guaranteeing whatever I was growing would survive.

There was also another NPC at every patch. They allowed you to store different kinds of equipment that would be needed to clear, plant, and harvest. I ended up tossing a couple of most tools onto this NPC. For just in case moments, I had forgotten to grab something from the bank. Sometimes whatever patch I was at would require a bit of a run to get back to a bank for whatever tool I needed.

I rather love the idea of this kind of feature. I don’t know how many times I'll end up running over to do an activity. Then realized I forgot some critical item. Thankfully sometimes there is a bank nearby such an activity. Other times, there is quite a heavy sigh on my part as it’s a long way back to a bank.

For a short little while to save a couple of gold and to increase my thieving levels. I attempted to steal my seeds from Master Farmers. These guys loved to wander around unless you could get them pinned down into a corner of something.

I ended up making a couple of trips out to the area with the Master Farmers in it. Many times, they would end up catching me trying to pickpocket them for seeds. So, they would deal a little bit of damage. This caused me after a while to need to make another bank run to drop off the seeds I had acquired and pick up further food I had to use for healing the damage I was taking from failed attempts.

While I did not need a lot of seeds to get myself going. I thought I might as well just get a bunch of different stuff. As it would turn out I'd only be using the seeds I gathered from the farmers for lower-level stuff. Everything else I'd end up buying off the Grand Exchange for the most part. Unless I just happened to luck out and loot a seed, I'd be needed along the way doing other activities like killing creatures or opening a loot bag.

I then made my first little farming route. It was just a couple of patches with some low-level seeds. One of the spots where I was planting Asgarnian hop seeds. At another, I had a redberry bunch I'd collect the fruits off every time I ran by it.

It was not efficient by any means. I had one large patch across the river and down away. Then another two spots on the other side of the river. Where I'd have to backtrack through the middle plot which was thankfully a fruit I could pick if I was sitting around for a while.

At the time I also needed farming experience to work on some further quests. So, I ended up just AFKing at one spot. Checking in from time to time waiting for one thing to grow. Then heading off my route to the next plot and the next. Then repeating this little route over and over again.

While I could have done a lot more things with my time. I did not want to have to run out every time to this part of the map every so often. So, this would end up being a location I more or less would move to if I was expecting to be taking long breaks in between actions I could be doing in the game. Which ended up working out perfectly for what I needed.

While it felt like it took forever to get to level 15. This was in fact when I decided it was time to move on to a better experience. That is when you unlock oak trees. I’d end up coming up with other routes and it would not be long before I forgot about my first route. Every time I passed by the fruit bush, I could pick something from. Even to this day, I've kept that patch unchanged as a reminder of my early start in farming.

When I had oak trees unlocked that is when I realized it was going to start costing some money to get the bigger experience. I could also no longer just wait around for a little bit of time to pass. Oak trees alone take just under three hours and the higher tier trees take even longer.

I also did not want to risk losing the trees either. At first, I ended up just buying the already-made oak saplings from the Grand Exchange. While people were paying as much as 800 gold each. I realized sometimes I just had to wait. I could put a buy order around the 450-gold mark. Getting the oak trees for half the cost.

The farmers also no longer wanted compost to protect something like a tree. For oaks, they wanted a tomato basket that went for a couple of hundred gold as well. Which was cheap enough.

While at the time I did not have access to every tree patch. I at least had between unlocking the fairy rings and spirit trees easy access to the ones I did. So, I made myself a new farming route this time for trees.

That route would end up consisting of the tree patch behind Lumbridge Castle. From there head up north to Falador. Which was nice and close to a bank as well. After that even further north till I was in Taverley. Then I'd run mostly east and a bit south to the one in Varrock. After that, I'd take a spirit tree to Tree Ghone Stronghold for the one in there.

Normally I did these runs at the start and end of my gaming sessions. So, once I was done with the spot in Tree Ghone Stronghold, I'd either run back to the sprit tree and go back to the Grand Exchange or use my teleport and get sent to Lumbridge Castle as a spot to log off for the night. Putting me right where I needed for my tree farming route the next time I logged in.

It now felt like the levels were flying by. It was taking a lot longer. I was spending less time on the farming activity at once. I would just do my farm route and then go work on other things I had planned for the day or log out for the night.

Then one night when it was time to harvest my oak trees. I realized I did not have any further oak saplings. I also could not even get any for over 1k gold. It was like the market was simply out of them. Perhaps I thought to myself quite a few people had just gone on a tree run.

I even waited around for over an hour. Hoping I could buy some oak saplings at a higher price. Nothing happened. So, it was time to take things into my own hands.

I ended up buying some empty pots for next to nothing. I then went and cleared out a tree patch. The patches themselves if nothing is growing in them you can fill the pots with dirt.

I then planted the oak seeds into each of the pots that were now filled with dirt. After that, I went up to a water fountain with a watering can. I’d use the watering can on the pots. Then refill the can at the fountain with more water.

That night I ended up making quite a few oak saplings. I ended up filling the shortage in the market. I was also quite greedy with my price. To my shock, some even sold at that outrageous price I was asking. It would not last forever and I'd end up making some downward price adjustments to keep things selling off.

I also made sure to keep enough for myself. I even picked up some bulk amounts of the supplies I needed to make further oak saplings. The last thing I wanted was to have to wait around hours with trees needing to be collected. I after all rather needed some farming levels. As it was holding me back and it was rather slow to start things off.

Final Thoughts

While things started rather humble and slow. I can’t believe how much I was selling off oak saplings for when there was a market shortage. My adventures in farming don’t end here either. I’d end up finding some decent money makers along the way and just chucking some money at this skill as well to progress further along.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Old School RuneScape.